56. A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious mathematical Quatrain of Omar's has been pointed out to me; the more curious because almost exactly parallel'd by some Verses of Doctor Donne's, that are quoted in Izaak Walton's Lives! Here is Omar: "You and I are the image of a pair of compasses; though we have two heads (sc. our feet) we have one body; when we have fixed the centre for our circle, we bring our heads (sc. feet) together at the end." Dr. Donne:

If we be two, we two are so As stiff twin-compasses are two; Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but does if the other do.

And though thine in the centre sit, Yet when my other far does roam, Thine leans and hearkens after it, And rows erect as mine comes home.

Such thou must be to me, who must Like the other foot obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And me to end where I begun.

59. The Seventy-two Religions supposed to divide the World, including Islamism, as some think: but others not.

60. Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest of India and its dark people.